Global Forest Link helps students save the trees

Reporter Deborah Sullivan Brennan of the San Diego Union Tribune covers the details of the Global Forest Link program. This article covers different aspects of the program, ranging from the different regions that are part of the program, interviews with the creators/participants of Global Forest Link, along with details about the program.

Global Forest Link Wrap Up Webinar [January 31, 2017]

This live interactive teleconference was the culminating session of Global Forest Link (Fall 2016). The purpose of this event was to announce the winners of the Global Forest Link Digital Storytelling awards and for participants to summarize their experiences. Over the past months, students in the United States, Russia, Taiwan and Ecuador studied forest change and the implications (due to fires, drought, insect infestation, logging, human development, climate change, environmental stress, excessive forest density, etc.). Students conducted field research, documented forest change in their local community, collaborated with partner schools, connected with national experts, and created digital stories about their experience. These stories are published at http://globalforestlink.com/stories/

Global Forest Watch In Education

How can we bridge the gap between technology and environmental education? This webinar introduces Global Forest Watch as a teaching tool for middle and high school classrooms. Featuring guest speakers Dr. Yvonne Andres and Dr. Elena Yulaeva co-directors of Global Forest Link, and Dr. Leigh Zeitz from the University of Northern Iowa, who shared how they have used GFW to engage students and tips for smoothly integrating technology like GFW into classroom settings.

16.12.16

San Diego Regional Urban Forest Council Award

Global Forest Link won an award for the “Best Urban Forestry Educational Project”

08.12.16

Why are Community and Urban Forests So Important?

Urban foresters play a vital role in the health and future of some of our most important forests – the trees along our streets and urban river corridors and in our parks and yards.

Guest speaker, Jeremy Barrick, is the Urban Forestry Program Manager for the City of San Diego Planning Department and Past President of the Society of Municipal Arborists. He began his career working for several rural and suburban municipalities in Minnesota, before joining NYC Parks as a Borough Forester. After a brief hiatus, as a Consulting Arborist, he returned to NYC Parks as the Arborist within the Capital Design and Construction division before becoming the Deputy Chief of Forestry, Horticulture and Natural Resources. He is an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist with a degree in Urban & Community Forestry from the University of Minnesota.

His work as the Urban Forestry Program Manager is focused on growing a resilient world-class urban forest for all San Diegans. The goals of the Urban Forestry Program are to maximize the environmental benefits of trees, maximize the efficiencies in maintaining urban trees, and minimizing the risks of trees in an urban environment.

“May the Forest Be with You” presented at the 2016 Iowa Technology Educators (ITEC) Conference.

Urban foresters play a vital role in the health and future of some of our most important forests – the trees along our streets and urban river corridors and in our parks and yards.

Guest speaker, Jeremy Barrick, is the Urban Forestry Program Manager for the City of San Diego Planning Department and Past President of the Society of Municipal Arborists. He began his career working for several rural and suburban municipalities in Minnesota, before joining NYC Parks as a Borough Forester. After a brief hiatus, as a Consulting Arborist, he returned to NYC Parks as the Arborist within the Capital Design and Construction division before becoming the Deputy Chief of Forestry, Horticulture and Natural Resources. He is an ISA Board Certified Master Arborist with a degree in Urban & Community Forestry from the University of Minnesota.

His work as the Urban Forestry Program Manager is focused on growing a resilient world-class urban forest for all San Diegans. The goals of the Urban Forestry Program are to maximize the environmental benefits of trees, maximize the efficiencies in maintaining urban trees, and minimizing the risks of trees in an urban environment.

Getting Started session of the Global Forest Link (GFL) project — Mt. Miguel High School and Various Locations in Russia

This live interactive conference was the Getting Started session of the Global Forest Link (GFL) project. Participants included teachers and students from Taiwan and Russia. The purpose of the event was to introduce student and educator participants to GFL. Participants learned about the project goals, deliverables, timeline, workflow, and tutorials. A brief overview of the GFL portal functionalities and the digital-storytelling component was discussed.

This live interactive conference was the Getting Started session of the Global Forest Link (GFL) project. Participants included teachers and students from Taiwan and Russia. The purpose of the event was to introduce student and educator participants to GFL. Participants learned about the project goals, deliverables, timeline, workflow, and tutorials. A brief overview of the GFL portal functionalities and the digital-storytelling component was discussed.

Francis W. Parker School: Global Forestry, Chicago Water

On May 26 and 27, Upper School students in Bridget Lesinksi’s and Elizabeth Druger’s Biology classes, as well as some of JP Iaconianni and Leslie Webster’s Chemistry students, took field trips that highlighted both local and global ecosystems. A visit to Chicago’s Water Processing Facility, led by Parker parent Barrett Murphy and engineer John Ellis, provided an in-depth look at Chicago’s water systems, and an interactive tree tour at the North Park Village Nature Center allowed students to collect data for a global forestry project.

Biology students participated in a pilot project that partnered students in Russian and American schools as citizen scientists. The Global Forest Link project involved students from Alma Ata, Moscow, Irkutsk and many other Russian cities, as well as students from several U.S. cities. While Parker represented Chicago for the project, the Francis Parker School in San Diego represented California.

Global Forest Link leaders explain: “Forests help purify the air we breathe and mitigate climate change. Forest health is a multidisciplinary and collaborative field of study that involves the understanding, monitoring and protection of the world’s forest resources. Global Forest Link participants have an opportunity to build an interactive database that will help environmentalists worldwide to conduct important research.”

The Global Forestry project enabled students to:

Engage in cross-cultural exchanges with peers from American and Russian schools, increasing awareness of global environmental issues and appreciation of other cultures

Learn the basics of environmental remote sensing using satellite images—a technology that is increasingly being used for environmental monitoring

Publish findings online, providing students with credible references for their university, college and career paths

Through Skype and Zoom and digital stories, Parker students connected with students in many Russian cities, sharing perspectives about their school days, career plans and local environment.

Thanks to Lesinski and Druger for their leadership in this ambitious project, and to Iaconianni and Webster for chaperoning the field trip. Thank you also to Barrett Murphy and John Ellis for the Water Processing Tours and Bob Porter for hosting Parker’s tree tours at the Nature Center.

The live interactive conference on May 24, 2016 was the culminating session of the US Russia Global Forest Link (Phase 2) project. The purpose of this event was for participants to share cultural information, summarize their experiences, and to discuss next steps.Over the past five months, students in the United States (from California, Iowa, Chicago, Washington DC) and students in Russia (more than 15 different locations) studied forest change and the implications (due to fires, drought, insect infestation, logging, human development, climate change, environmental stress, excessive forest density, etc.). Students conducted field research, documented forest change in their local community, collaborated with partner schools, connected with national experts, and created digital stories about their experience.

21.05.16

Mt. Everest Academy Visit

On April 27, 2016, our team visited Mt Everest Academy. Dmitry Aksenov’s made an in-depth presentation on the global forest threats and answered the students questions.

27.04.16

Skype Conference – April 27

April 27, 2016, Skype conference among the US and Russian participants

25.04.16

Skype Conference – April 25

April 25, 2016, Skype conference among the US and Russian participants

3.04.16

Parker Magazine Highlights the Global Forest Link Project

15.12.15

Global Forest Link: Wrap-up Conference

This live interactive conference is the culminating session of the Global Forest Link (GFL) pilot project. During the event participants summarized their experiences, discussed the project impact, and suggested next steps to raise awareness about forest change and the implications.

Over the past 4 months students from San Diego, California, USA and Republic of Buryatia, Russia studied forest change and the implications (due to fires, drought, insect infestation, logging, human development, climate change, environmental stress, excessive forest density, etc.). Students conducted field research in their local regions, documented forest change in their local community, collaborated with international partner schools, connected with national experts, and created digital stories to describe their experiences.

30.08.15

Russia: Firefighters continue to battle Buryatia wildfires

30.08.15 17:01

The area of forest fires in Buryatia per day increased by more than 800 hectares

The emergencies Ministry on Sunday reported some success in fighting the fires in Buryatia. In the Republic «managed to halt the growth of the area of fire»: at night, the area will be increased by 819 hectares, whereas before it was increased by 3,000 hectares every day, reports «Interfax».

«During the day in the Republic of Buryatia there were two fires on
the area of more than 3.1 thousand hectares, eliminated six of fires on the square
more than 2,2 thousand hectares,» — said in the MOE.

In Buryatiya rages 56 wildfires.

For the past day to fight the fires involved nearly 2,400 people and 231 unit of equipment.

The Department also reported that for the last day in Irkutsk
new centres of natural fires not. «Liquidated three fires on the area of 1937 hectares», — reported in the MOE.

In the area of the fires is still hampered by the use of air due to
bad visibility. However, the aircraft has prevented the spread of fires in the direction of a single locality.

The Department stressed that all localities and objects
the economy is protected from fire rescue garrisons of EMERCOM of Russia.

Worsening Wildfire Seasons Tax The Forest Service

This has been one of the worst — and most expensive — wildfire seasons ever in the Northwest, where climate change and a history of suppressing wildfires have created a dangerous buildup of fuels.

With fires burning hotter and more intense, there are renewed calls to change how the federal government pays to fight the biggest fires.

“These large and intense fires are a natural disaster in much the same way a hurricane or a tornado or a flood is,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says. “And they ought to be funded as such through the emergency funding of FEMA.”

But behind what seems like another battle over which agency should pay for what, is something much bigger and more complex. The U.S. Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department, simply isn’t set up to deal with these new types of mega-fires that are transforming the West.

To understand this, remember that wildfires have been intertwined with the Forest Service since just a few years after it was created. The summer of 1910 was later characterized as “The Big Blow Up.” Coincidentally, like this year, the worst fires then were in the Northwest and northern Rockies, where more than 3 million acres burned and at least 85 people died.

In the years after, the Forest Service implemented its now infamous “10 a.m. policy.” Every wildfire had to be put out by 10 a.m. the following day.

Firefighters extinguish hot spots after a wildfire, part of the Okanogan Complex, swept through the area on Saturday near Okanogan, Wash.

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

“There are a lot of people who refer to the U.S. Forest Service as the ‘U.S. Fire Service’ because fire has become such a part of their mission,” says Michael Kodas, a wildfire expert at the University of Colorado.

Today, the wildfire season is much longer — 78 days longer than even in the 1970s, for instance — and the conditions out on the land are extraordinary. This is taxing the Forest Service to the breaking point. The agency is now spending more than $1 billion a year to fight fires, and just a fraction of that for every other important ecological job the agency is responsible for such as watershed restoration, tree thinning or recreation projects.

“Part of the problem here is, basically, overly ambitious expectations of what the Forest Service and what our wild land firefighting organization overall can really accomplish.” Kodas says.

It’s now widely known that prior wildfire suppression policies are partly to blame for the current conditions. Yet the impacts of the worsening wildfires on the agency’s budget are telling, if startling.

This year, more than half of the entire Forest Service budget will go to fire suppression, compared to about 16 percent in 1995. More recently, the agency has reported a 114 percent increase in fire suppression staff and a 38 percent drop in the number of people who do all the other work. As fire seasons become year-round in some Western states, the Forest Service has hired a lot more professional firefighters and a lot fewer wildlife biologists or technicians who conduct prescribed burns that help prevent wildfires.

In some ways, the Forest Service set itself up for this. Retired and former Forest Service officials say that as logging declined in the West, the agency made its name as the firefighting leader on Capitol Hill. Today this is how most Americans have heard of the Forest Service, and wildfires are often how the agency justifies its existence to lawmakers.

Dick Mangan, a retired Forest Service fire official and now firefighting consultant in Missoula, Mont., says the 24-hour news cycle has made it harder to get smarter about long-term forest management.

“All of a sudden somebody’s going to be sticking a camera in there almost forcing the issue, socially and politically, that we take some kind of action to try to protect these places,” Mangan says. “And that generally involves an awful lot of expense.”

In Oregon on Friday, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack warned that the federal government is already spending more than $150 million a week fighting wildfires. The Forest Service says federal, state and local fire teams typically control all but 2 percent of the tens of thousands of wildfires that ignite every year. It’s that last 2 percent that can turn into the big, catastrophic blazes such as Washington’s Okanagan Complex fire.

Vilsack told NPR that the Forest Service is paying its firefighting bills at the expense of other programs that could help prevent future fires.

“At the same time, members of Congress and senators come to us and say, ‘We want more work being done in our forests, we want more timber treated,’ ” Vilsack said.

But wildfires are still relatively small natural disasters compared with a big hurricane or earthquake. There’s widespread doubt that Congress will act on changing fire budgets this summer, so the Forest Service may be stuck as the “Fire Service” for some time.